Student success depends on effective textbook reading. The most efficient way to read a textbook is a key study skill that most people must know. The goal of every textbook is simple, and it is to inform and educate the reader about a particular subject matter. But here the question comes to your mind that how to read a textbook efficiently? Or how to efficiently read a textbook? The answer to both these questions is simple, as you can do this in a number of ways. Well, reading a textbook properly and efficiently is a skill that good students master in order to understand the content.
Reading a textbook efficiently also means that you find a way to interact with the material and connect with the content in a meaningful way. Textbooks are a big part of your reading if you are a school, college, and university student. As compared to other parts of reading, textbook reading is more difficult. Thus, it requires you to be alert, active, and attentive. Some students feel overwhelmed with the amount of information they contain and have valuable features that help them to learn more.
Textbooks are quite unique and different from novels, stories, articles, and other types of texts. The features of these textbooks contain enough information and clues about the text that you are reading. Before starting a chapter, first, spend a few minutes previewing a chapter or section so that you can get the idea of the main concepts of that particular section. Therefore, you can pull out the important ideas of the textbook more easily and have a better concentration and focus on the reading.
Active Reading Strategies to Follow:
Most of the students open the textbook and start reading the first sentence, and then they fall into two categories. The first one is those students who read each word and take notes for hours. Second, are the ones who skip and flip the pages of the textbook. But both approaches are passive and don’t involve any critical thought. The first one makes the reader a copying machine and the second one does not have any active engagement.
On the contrary, research shows that active reading strategies followed by readers lead to a high level of comprehension or retention. Students can perform better in class and their studies. Thus, active reading forces the reader’s brain to do something effective and research-backed while reading the textbook.
Some Important Tips to Read a Textbook Efficiently:
Most of the students make mistakes by picking up their textbook and start reading more than 50 pages straight without understanding the concept properly. They start reading from front to back and consider that they have completed all the reading parts from their end. However, these students are the ones who often struggle a lot in participating actively in the classroom discussion. They also do not do well in the tests.
The following are some important tips to read a textbook efficiently.
- Read the introduction of the textbook:
If you have a textbook to read, then first read the title and introduction. The introduction of the textbook will tell about the background and recognize the chapter’s purpose. It also represents the outline of the textbook and will tell the approach of the author and summarize his or her arguments in detail. - Organization of the textbook:
In the textbook, first look at the table of contents, and see that how they are organized. It will predict what you will cover in the textbook and what things will come to your test or exams. You can also check the organization of the textbook. This is important, as most textbook authors provide a detailed outline of the headings and subheadings. These headings will show that what things the author will be covering in each chapter. - Skip to the end first:
There will be a summary of each chapter that you will find in many textbooks. They offer a recap of the whole chapter content and also have some study questions. Therefore, before reading the whole chapter, skipping to this part first will help you on the things you need to focus on in a particular chapter. - Big ideas in textbooks:
Textbooks are tough to read as one cannot absorb every detail found in them. You have to focus more on the important details first. Big ideas are easy to recognize in textbooks because they are available in bold text or print and section headings. Hence, by reading the big ideas, one can easily understand the concept of the sentence and the author’s point of view quite clearly. - Key details:
After identifying the big ideas, try to make notes of the supporting details. The key details will make sense for the big ideas. For instance, if we talk about history books, the key details are the key people, places, and events. In grammar books, grammar rules are the key details. For books related to languages, vocabulary is the most important key detail available in the chapters. It is good for you if you check the notes at the end of the chapter. If there are the same key details present, this means that you are on the right track. - Take a break:
A reader of a textbook must take a break. It is suitable for a reader to go for a walk for 10 to 15 minutes. They can also reward themselves with some entertainment. Students cannot study well and effectively if they are exhausted and tired. Therefore, they must approach each chapter with a clear mind. - Review the chapters or sections:
After you have finished the chapter of the textbook, then it is time for review. Can you answer the end questions of the chapter by yourself? And can you summarize and write in your own words what you have understood from a particular chapter? You can also go back and re-read the notes and the highlighted sections of the chapter. If you know the skill of reading, then you can confidently read any textbook as efficiently as possible.